1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to transfer emblems containing fine-cut and digitally-printed detailing such as appliqué text, logo graphics, numbers or other indicia and which may simulate a finely-embroidered appearance, for adhesive application, such as thermal activated or pressure sensitive adhesives, directly onto garments, apparel, and accessories, for identification, decoration, trademarking or otherwise embellishing the final product, thereby eliminating the need for sewn embroidery, thermo-transfer films, silk screen or sublimated printing.
2. Description of the Background
Fashion, “basic” and performance apparel, uniform, swimwear, intimate apparel, outerwear and accessory manufacturers use various methods to apply decoration and identification to garments and textiles. They tend to use silk-screening, screen-printing, thermo-transfer films, sonic welding and direct embroidery as their primary methods for decorating and identification.
Silk-screening of logos or emblems is commonly used, but this process is complex and time-consuming. In addition, the designs created by silk-screening are flat, lack texture, and do not withstand repeated industrial or home washings. Consequently, many companies prefer embroidery as their primary method for applying decoration and identification.
Sonic welding is another method used to apply decoration and identification to garments and textiles. This process requires the creation of unique, expensive special dies for any design to be applied. The quick-change requirements associated with the fashion industry make this process slow and relatively expensive. Sonic welding allows texturing, but also requires chemical compounds that some companies find unacceptable, and that can result in a product that does not withstand repeated home and industrial laundering. Indeed, this process typically is not used by the uniform industry for these reasons. Embroidery has instead become the primary method for applying decoration and identification.
Embroidery is typically performed by a machine that applies stitching of various colors and styles to fabric to create a design. Embroidered designs have a much greater aesthetic value, and yet this too is a complex, time-consuming process. A separate stitching step is required for each color in the design and for each design element.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,009,943 to Stahl discloses a method for producing a multi-colored emblem that may be ironed-on to garments to provide an embroidered appearance. This method entails laminating a material blank, cutting the laminated material to a specific design, embroidering about the periphery of the cut design, laminating the assembly onto a second material blank, and coating the underside with a thermal adhesive layer. The emblem can then be heat-sealed to a garment. Despite the ability to give a realistic embroidered look, emblems produced using Stahls' method are relatively large, bulky and inflexible. Moreover, the design elements are solid colored dyed material, limiting design detail, and still require sewn-embroidery, and are die-cut, thereby requiring these three separate and inefficient processing steps. The uniform and apparel industries are tending to move toward less expensive emblems that nevertheless convey an authentic embroidered look.
There are other transfer emblems that may be applied to various cloth surfaces without embroidery. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,635,001 to Mahn, Jr. issued Jun. 3, 1997 shows cloth transfers that include a cloth layer coated with a plastic layer which is, in turn, coated with a pressure sensitive adhesive layer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,914,176 to Myers issued Jun. 22, 1999 shows a composite design for attachment to another fabric article, comprising an underlying layer of twill fabric on one side of which a design is screen printed with plastisol based inks and heat cured. The twill is cut into a desired shape so that the twill and the ink portion form the composite design. Methods of making and attaching the composite design are disclosed.
Though stitched embroidery is avoided, in both of the foregoing cases the ink designs are screen printed and cutting is die-cutting. These are independent steps creating a cumbersome process. The resulting product is inferior in durability to washing and cannot be ironed. Further the preferred embodiment uses plastisols in the inks which are objectionable to many apparel manufacturers. More recent technological advances have been made in the field of digital printing and advanced cutting to reduce the cost, development cycle time, product cycle time and required inventories.
For example, laser etching allows art or lettering to be cut into a material by a laser beam that vaporizes the portion exposed through openings in a template. This can add fine etched details, but not print designs since no ink is deposited.
There are other digital printing methods that can potentially accomplish the latter. For example, four-color electrostatic printing is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,899,604 to Clark.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,181,423 to Pressman et al. discloses a method and an apparatus for modulated aperture electrostatic half tone printing using modulated ion streams and transparent toners. Color images are formed by overlaying black, magenta, cyan, and yellow images to form a full color image, where additional colors, such as metallics, may be added for special effects.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,749,032 to Landa et al. discloses a color imaging system in which separate yellow, magenta, cyan, and black liquid toners are supplied from four different reservoirs.
Manufacturers of electrostatic printers include RasterGraphics (Orchard Parkway, San Jose, Calif.) and 3M (St. Paul, Minn.), all of whom have introduced 54 inch wide printers with multiple inking fountains for displays, signs and banners, trade show graphics, outdoor billboards, fleet graphics, bus shelters, wall paper, vinyl flooring, and backlit displays, etc. Dye sublimation has dramatically increased the applications for electrostatic printing. By imaging first on electrostatic paper and then applying heat, pressure and time, color images can be transferred onto a wide variety of other substrates, including, but not limited to a wide variety of polyester fabrics. While the dye sublimation process has allowed a greater range of applications, it remains relatively expensive and not well-suited for apparel and fabric trim printing and requires additional process steps, time and set-up for putting an image onto fabric.
Thermal Inkjets are a new print format that are capable of economical high-quality production-speed fabric printing. For example, the Colorfast™ Fabrijet™ Thermal Inkjet is capable of 600 dpi or 1200 dpi using 12 printing heads that deposit a reactive, acid CMYK ink.
Similarly, Stork Digital Imaging has introduced its Sapphire II™ digital printer for high-quality sampling and production runs on textile and apparel. This system is capable of printing on a wide variety of natural and synthetic textiles including silk and polyamide, as well as stretch fabrics.
The DuPont™ Artistri™ is a fully integrated, production capable digital printing system developed for printing on all type of fabrics including cellulosic, polyamides and polyesters. The system was designed for a variety of applications, including printed textiles, accessories, apparel, home furnishings, gaming table covers, flags and banners, soft signage, and trade show displays. This thermal inkjet printer is also equipped with an on-board heating unit that is designed to cure the inks onto the fabrics before they exit the roll-to-roll printer. The final setting of the inks on polyesters can occur on a heated calendar.
Despite these print hardware advances, these thermal inkjet digital printers have only been used for direct textile printing. They have not heretofore been used for intermediate printing onto a substrate that can be coated with adhesive backings, such as thermal activated or pressure sensitive adhesives for later application to a fabric substrate. Thus, there is no current production method for producing multi-colored emblems that may be quickly and efficiently sealed on to garments to provide an embroidered and or appliquéd appearance.
It would be greatly advantageous to provide process for producing a transfer applique bearing various combinations of digitally-printed elements such as letters, logo graphics and numbers or other indicia, that could include laser-etching to accentuate the foregoing and potentially some stitch elements, then laser or die-cutting of the elements all in a format that is easily applied to a garment or other textile so that all of the elements are precisely registered without using direct embroidery to apply the appliqué to the garment.